The hearings previewed what is likely to be a renewed debate over retiring the B83 megaton gravity bomb as Congress drafts the annual defense authorization bill, starting in June. The Air Force also plans to retire the only aircraft capable of carrying the B83, the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, by 2032 at the latest.

“The rationale of this administration to retire the B83 gravity bomb without a replacement capability is not clear to me,” Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., the ranking member of the House Strategic Forces Subcommittee, said at a Tuesday hearing. “In fact, it is my understanding that not only is there no replacement capability, but the process to identify candidates for a replacement capability has not even yet started.”

Lamborn argued that the B83 — which is 80 times more powerful than the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima during World War II — is necessary for targeting “hard and deeply buried targets.”

But the assistant defense secretary for space policy, John Plumb, who serves on the Nuclear Weapons Council, countered that the B83 does not adequately address the challenge of deeply buried targets. “It’s of increasingly limited utility, and retiring it does not change the hard and deeply buried target set,” Plumb said.

The Biden administration opted to keep funding the B83 last year in its FY22 budget request, but subsequently decided not to maintain the bomb in its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review. The decision revives former President Barack Obama’s efforts to defund the nearly 4-decade-old megaton bomb. Former President Donald Trump then derailed the Obama administration’s plans when he decided to retain the B83, which is the last remaining megaton bomb in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., also pushed back against retiring the B83 during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday with officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration.

“My understanding is that the number of targets the B83 is credible for has been shrinking,” NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby told Kennedy.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., encouraged the Biden administration to retire the B83 as soon as possible during that same hearing, highlighting the partisan battle lines around the gravity bomb.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who had sought to kill the B83 in legislation he introduced last year that would slash $73 billion from the nuclear weapons budget over a decade, said he was “heartened” by Biden’s plans to retire the megaton bomb.

“No sane leader could contemplate deploying a nuclear bomb that is 100 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima,” Markey told Defense News. “We must resist ‘Dr. Strangelove’-like efforts by Republicans to keep our last and most indiscriminate megaton bomb in the stockpile.”

Congress ultimately authorized $52 million to fund the B83 in its annual defense bill last year, despite efforts from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., to defund it. Smith ended up yielding to his colleagues in the Senate last year, who agreed to fund it, per the Biden administration’s request.

But now that the administration seeks to defund the B83, the Republican minority may be unable to count on much help from Senate Democrats in the quest to preserve the megaton bomb.

“I am satisfied with the posture of my forces. I have made no recommendations to make any changes,” U.S. Strategic Command’s chief, Adm. Charles Richard, told a House Armed Services subpanel Tuesday. “All I’ll say in open session is … nuclear command and control is in its most defended, most resilient lineup that it’s ever been in, in its history.”

Richard, whose comment came at a posture hearing on the military’s missile defense, space and nuclear weapons, said he could only say more in a closed session set to start after. Officials largely declined to discuss U.S. or Russian moves in the open session, in light of the ongoing conflict, and Richard testified by video from his command’s Omaha headquarters.

The remarks came as Russian nuclear submarines sailed off for drills in the Barents Sea and mobile missile launchers roamed snow forests Tuesday in Siberia after Putin ordered his nation’s nuclear forces put on high alert over tensions with the West over the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s Northern Fleet said in a statement several of its nuclear submarines were involved in exercises designed to “train maneuvering in stormy conditions.” It said multiple warships tasked with protecting northwest Russia’s Kola Peninsula, where several naval bases are located, would join the maneuvers.

In the Irkutsk region of eastern Siberia, units of the Strategic Missile Forces dispersed Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launchers in forests to practice secret deployment, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The military didn’t say whether the drills were linked to Putin’s order on Sunday to put the country’s nuclear forces on high alert. It also was unclear whether the exercises represented a change in the country’s normal nuclear training activities or posture.

Putin’s decree applied to all parts of the Russian nuclear triad, which like in the U.S., consists of nuclear submarines armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-tipped land-based ICBMs and nuclear-capable strategic bombers. The United States and Russia have the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world, by far.

The U.S. said Putin’s move unnecessarily escalated an already dangerous conflict, but so far has announced no changes in its nuclear weapons alert level as the U.S. is trying to discern what Putin meant by the order for his nuclear forces to be at “special combat readiness.”

“It’s not a term of art in what we understand to be Russian [nuclear] doctrine,” a senior defense official said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity. “So that’s why we’re analyzing it and reviewing it to try to understand what exactly it means.”

The U.S. has not seen “noticeable muscle movements” or changes to Russia’s nuclear posture, the official said.

The White House said it saw “no reason to change” its nuclear alert levels at this time, and President Joe Biden assured Americans they should not fear nuclear war.

U.S. officials and experts have interpreted Putin’s move as bluster, but say he has to be taken seriously, given his unpredictable aggression against Ukraine.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told ABC on Sunday Putin’s decision to put his nation’s nuclear deterrent forces on a state of heightened alert was part of a “pattern” of “manufacturing threats that don’t exist.”

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., on Monday expressed confidence in assurances from U.S. national security officials that America has a strong nuclear deterrent in place.

“Whatever Putin’s rhetoric might be, I think we are further from the nuclear brink than what some of the comments might be because we have made it very clear that [using nuclear weapons] is a line that cannot be crossed,” Smith told CNN.

But Jon Wolfsthal, a former senior director at the National Security Council and former adviser to then-Vice President Biden, said Biden or top defense officials need to make it clearer by calling their counterparts to say they consider the conflict non-nuclear, and that if Putin uses nuclear weapons, “his days are numbered.”

“I don’t think Putin is suicidal, and he knows that using nuclear weapons against NATO would be suicide, but it’s not clear that he knows using them against Ukraine would be suicide,” Wolfsthal said. “So we need to be pretty clear.”

Wolfsthal said Putin’s nuclear saber rattling is meant to reinforce his threat to the West to back off and to cause fissures within NATO.

“We have different allies with different views, and there are those worried about nuclear use in Europe,” Wolfsthal said. “He’s trying to use the playbook he was raised on in the KGB, to try to sow that dissent. It doesn’t mean it’s not true, and it doesn’t mean it’s not a risk.”

Observers have questioned whether Putin is acting rationally, with a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, saying this week Putin appears “increasingly unhinged.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Republican, tweeted last week, “I wish I could share more but for now I can say it’s pretty obvious to many that something is off with Putin.”

Fiona Hill, former official at the National Security Council specializing in Russian and European affairs, said in an interview with Politico published Monday “we’re right there,” in terms of a potential nuclear weapons threat.

“Every time you think, ‘No, he wouldn’t, would he?’ Well, yes, he would,” Hill said. “And he wants us to know that, of course.

“It’s not that we should be intimidated and scared,” she added. “We have to prepare for those contingencies and figure out what is it that we’re going to do to head them off.”

With reporting by The Associated Press.

While stripped of its nuclear payload for the launch, the ICBM contained conventional explosives aboard a Hi-Fidelity Joint Test Assembly re-entry vehicle, which successfully detonated above the water’s surface near Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands, some 4,200 miles from the launch site.

“Today’s test launch is just one example of how our nation’s ICBM fleet demonstrates operational readiness and reliability of the weapon system. It also allows us to showcase the amazing level of competence and capability of our Airmen,” Col. Omar Colbert, Commander of the 576th Flight Test Squadron, said.

Defense officials were careful to stress that the test was routine, taking months to plan rather than a response to tensions in the region or around the world. Overall, officials said the Air Force periodically tests the Minuteman 3 to demonstrate the weapons system’s capability and gather data. The Defense Department, Energy Department, and US Strategic Air Command use the data collected to further force development.

“Test launches are not a response or reaction to world events or regional tensions,” said Lt. Col. Aaron Boudreau, Task Force commander said. “The launch calendars are built five years in advance, and planning for each individual launch begins six months to a year prior to launch.”

Conducting the launch were airmen from the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom AFB, 90th Missile Wing at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, and 91st Missile Wing at Minot. These airmen fall under Air Force Global Strike Command, headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Shreveport, Louisiana. AFGSC is not only responsible for the nation’s ICBM fleet but also its strategic bomber fleet of B-52, B-1, and B-2 wings, effectively housing two of the three nuclear triad’s “legs.”

“The U.S. nuclear enterprise is the cornerstone of the security structure of the free world,” Colbert said in the release.

According to the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, the first iteration of the Minuteman ICBM became operational in the early 1960s. Since then, it has gone through a series of improvements leading to the Minuteman 3 becoming active in the early 1970s.

Despite nearly 60 years of reliable service, the Minuteman series of ICBMs is slated for replacement beginning in 2029, when the Air Force expects an “initial capability” of its replacement, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, to be online.

Until then, the Air Force states it is committed to ensuring that the Minuteman 3 remains a viable deterrent, which is due primarily to the commitment and competence of the Airmen who operate and maintain the weapons platform.

“We’re honored to conduct this mission in conjunction with the 576th Flight Test Squadron and extremely proud to represent the numerous men and women that support the nuclear deterrence mission,” Boudreau said.

Researchers at the Federation of American Scientists estimate that China has approximately 250 underground missile silos under construction after they used satellite imagery to identify a new field being built in western China.

U.S. Strategic Command tweeted a link Wednesday to a story in The New York Times on the federation’s findings, which were published this week.

“The public has discovered what we have been saying all along about the growing threat the world faces and the veil of secrecy that surrounds it,” said Strategic Command, which oversees America’s nuclear arsenal.

The field in the Xinjiang region is the second one reported this summer. In June, researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California identified another field under construction in neighboring Gansu province.

China has not commented on the reports. Asked about the latest one, the Foreign Ministry said Friday that it was not aware of the situation.

The reports come at a time when relations between the U.S. and China have plunged to their worst level in decades. The two nations remain sharply at odds over a range of issues, including trade, technology, cybersecurity, human rights and China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy under President Xi Jinping.

The expansion of China’s nuclear force would likely factor into any U.S. calculations for potential military confrontations over flashpoints such as Taiwan or the South China Sea.

The outspoken editor of the state-owned Global Times newspaper said this week that U.S. institutions and the media are hyping the reports about the missile fields to pressure China, but that the nation shouldn’t be cowed.

“Look at what American politicians are saying about China and look at the provocative actions of their warplanes and warships near China,” Hu Xijin said. “China must fully step up construction of its military force and nuclear deterrence as the cornerstone of its national security.”

Both sites are around 800 square kilometers (300 square miles). Ground-based silos can house intercontinental ballistic missiles. Spreading the silos across such a wide area makes targeting the field much more complicated. Analysts say some of the silos may serve as decoys as well.

“The Chinese missile silo program constitutes the most extensive silo construction since the U.S. and Soviet missile silo construction during the Cold War,” researchers Matt Korda and Hans Kristensen wrote in the Federation of American Scientists report.

Kuo Yu-jen, a defense studies expert at the Institute for National Policy Research in Taiwan, said it’s very difficult to get an accurate count of the underground silos of any country, but that the recently released satellite imagery looks “very, very similar” to missile silos.

He characterized the findings as a warning by the U.S. to others that China, in developing its nuclear weapon capabilities, is violating an international consensus geared toward nuclear disarmament.

“It’s also to let Russia know. China, if it increases its number of missiles, it threatens not only the U.S., but also Russia and Europe,” said Kuo, the director at the Institute for National Policy Research in Taiwan.

The U.S. and Russia, who have the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, held inconclusive talks this week in Geneva in a bid to avoid a new nuclear arms race.

China’s nuclear arsenal is estimated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute at 350 warheads, while the United States or Russia each has about 6,000. The Pentagon says China will at least double the size of its arsenal in 10 years.

The recent research follows a finding by Kristensen in February of construction of 11 underground silos at a vast missile training range near Jilantai in north-central China.

The service on July 1 awarded Raytheon a cost-plus-fixed-fee deal for the engineering and manufacturing development stage of the LRSO program, with contract options that max out at about $2 billion.

During the program’s EMD stage, Raytheon will continue maturing its LRSO design and prepare for full-rate production of the weapon in 2027, the contract announcement stated.

LRSO is slated to replace the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, which was designed in the 1970s. Air Force officials have argued that the legacy ALCM has become more difficult to maintain as its supply base becomes obsolete, and its effectiveness gets increasingly compromised as adversaries field more sophisticated air defense systems.

The Air Force could buy more than 1,000 LRSO missiles, which are projected to have a range in excess of 1,500 miles.

During a July 2 briefing, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the Defense Department aims to keep LRSO development on track, even as it executes a Nuclear Posture Review that could eventually call for the weapon’s cancellation.

The Pentagon’s fiscal 2022 budget requests full funding for the military’s nuclear modernization priorities, including $609 million for the LRSO program. That money ensures efforts like LRSO, the B-21 bomber and the Columbia-class submarine proceed, even as the department studies whether to make changes to the nuclear enterprise.

“As we continue with nuclear modernization we are going to continue to review ongoing programs to assess their performance, schedule risks and projected costs so you can define the right balance of maintaining the necessary nuclear capabilities with cost-effective solutions,” Kirby said.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in December 2020 that the Pentagon would save $12.5 billion from FY21 to FY30 by canceling the LRSO program and the W80-4 warhead it will carry.

In 2017, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin each received a contract worth about $900 million for the 54-month technology maturation and risk reduction phase of the LRSO program. At the time, the service planned to downselect to a single vendor in FY22 during the EMD period.

However, the Air Force announced last year that it would sole-source the LRSO design developed by Raytheon, effectively booting Lockheed from the competition two years early.

“Our competitive TMRR phase, which included both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as the prime contractors, enabled us to select a high-confidence design at this point in the acquisition process,” Maj. Gen. Shaun Morris, who leads the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, said at the time.

If approved by the Senate, the career missileer and space officer would earn a promotion to four-star general, according to Global Strike. He would also become the first Black man to lead the organization in charge of the service’s nuclear enterprise, and the only Black person currently running an Air Force major command.

Cotton has served as the No. 2 officer at Global Strike since October 2019, headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. He joined the service through the Reserve Officers Training Corps in 1986 and has recently worked as head of Air University, commander of 20th Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missile enterprise, deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office and boss of the former 45th Space Wing and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

He is next in line to replace Gen. Timothy Ray, a bomber pilot who took over the top spot in August 2018. The four-star will retire this summer after four decades in uniform.

“His retirement ceremony will be 1 July, but depending on how long the confirmation process takes for Lt. Gen. Cotton, he may be in the office prior to the change of command,” Global Strike spokesperson Carla Pampe said.

Senators first noted Ray’s pending retirement at a Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee hearing in May.

“I tried [retiring] after 40 years of coaching and, after about a year, my wife said, ‘You either get a job or we’re gonna get a divorce,’” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, told Ray at a hearing in May. “So get ready for that.”

Cotton is poised to take over amid significant change in the Air Force’s aging nuclear inventory. The service is buying its first new land-based and air-launched nuclear missiles in decades, refurbishing the B61 bomb, retiring the B-1B Lancer bomber fleet while looking to do the same for the B-2 Spirit bombers, preparing to keep the B-52 Stratofortress bombers flying for 100 years, and trying to overhaul the systems that allow top American officials to command those weapons and planes, among other initiatives.

USAF is also starting to build a new, multibillion-dollar B-21 Raider stealth bomber that is slated to fly for the first time next year. A new missile field security helicopter, the MH-139 Grey Wolf, is about to replace the Vietnam War-era Hueys as well.

Air Force Global Strike Command spans more than 33,700 employees across 11 active-duty, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve wings around the world.

Cotton would also lead the command at a time of introspection about racial equity in America and the military. He spoke last summer on his experience as a Black Air Force officer, noting the importance of finding new ways to reach out to airmen of different backgrounds to ensure they are properly included and mentored.

“I am cautiously optimistic that we’ll get after this … not necessarily only from a Department of the Air Force perspective,” he said. “It’s time for our nation to really dive into this and get after it once and for all.”

Putin said there was “no hostility” during the talks that wrapped up more quickly than expected.

The two sides had said they expected to meet for four to five hours but spent less than three hours together, including an opening meeting with just the two presidents and each one’s top foreign aide.

When it was over, Putin had first crack at describing the results at a solo news conference, with Biden to follow with his own session with reporters.

Putin acknowledged that Biden raised human rights issues with him, including the fate of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Putin defended Navalny’s prison sentence and deflected repeated questions about mistreatment of Russian opposition leaders by highlighting U.S. domestic turmoil, including the Black Lives Matter protests and the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

Putin held forth for nearly an hour before international reporters. While showing defiance at queries about Biden pressing him on human rights, he also expressed a significant measure of respect for Biden as an experienced political leader.

The Russian leader noted that Biden repeated wise advice his mother had given him and also spoke about his family — messaging that Putin said might not have been entirely relevant to their summit but demonstrated Biden’s “moral values.” Though he raised doubt that the U.S.-Russia relationship could soon return to a measure of equilibrium of years past, Putin suggested that Biden was someone he could work with.

“The meeting was actually very efficient,” Putin said. “It was substantive, it was specific. It was aimed at achieving results, and one of them was pushing back the frontiers of trust.”

Putin said he and Biden agreed to begin negotiations on nuclear talks to potentially replace the New START treaty limiting nuclear weapons after it expires in 2026.

Washington broke off talks with Moscow in 2014 in response to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and its military intervention in support of separatists in eastern Ukraine. Talks resumed in 2017 but gained little traction and failed to produce an agreement on extending the New START treaty during the Trump administration.

The Russian president said there was an agreement between the leaders to return their ambassadors to their respective postings. Both countries had pulled back their top envoys to Washington and Moscow as relations chilled in recent months.

Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, was recalled from Washington about three months ago after Biden called Putin a killer; U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan left Moscow almost two months ago, after Russia suggested he return to Washington for consultations. Putin said that the ambassadors were expected to return their posts in the coming days.

Putin also said the two sides agreed in principle to begin consultations on cybersecurity issues, though he continued to deny U.S. allegations that Russian government was responsible for a spate of recent high-profile hacks against business and government agencies in the United States and around the globe.

The meeting in a book-lined room had a somewhat awkward beginning — both men appeared to avoid looking directly at each other during a brief and chaotic photo opportunity before a scrum of jostling reporters.

Biden nodded when a reporter asked if Putin could be trusted, but the White House quickly sent out a tweet insisting that the president was “very clearly not responding to any one question, but nodding in acknowledgment to the press generally.”

Their body language, at least in their brief moments together in front of the press, was not exceptionally warm.

The two leaders did shake hands — Biden extended his hand first and smiled at the stoic Russian leader — after Swiss President Guy Parmelin welcomed them to Switzerland for the summit. When they were in front of the cameras a few minutes later—this time inside the grand lakeside mansion where the summit was held — they seemed to avoid eye contact.

For months, Biden and Putin have traded sharp rhetoric. Biden has repeatedly called out Putin for malicious cyberattacks by Russian-based hackers on U.S. interests, for the jailing of Russia’s foremost opposition leader and for interference in American elections.

Putin has reacted with whatabout-isms and denials — pointing to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol to argue that the U.S. has no business lecturing on democratic norms and insisting that the Russian government hasn’t been involved in any election interference or cyberattacks despite U.S. intelligence showing otherwise.

In advance of Wednesday’s meeting, both sides set out to lower expectations.

Even so, Biden said it was an important step if the United States and Russia were able to ultimately find “stability and predictability” in their relationship, a seemingly modest goal from the president for dealing with the person he sees as one of America’s fiercest adversaries.

Arrangements for the meeting were carefully choreographed and vigorously negotiated.

Biden first floated the meeting in an April phone call in which he informed Putin that he would be expelling several Russian diplomats and imposing sanctions against dozens of people and companies, part of an effort to hold the Kremlin accountable for interference in last year’s presidential election and the hacking of federal agencies.

The White House announced ahead of the summit that Biden wouldn’t hold a joint news conference with Putin, deciding it did not want to appear to elevate Putin at a moment when the U.S. president is urging European allies to pressure Putin to cut out myriad provocations.

Biden sees himself with few peers on foreign policy. He traveled the globe as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was given difficult foreign policy assignments by President Barack Obama when Biden was vice president. His portfolio included messy spots like Iraq and Ukraine and weighing the mettle of China’s Xi Jinping during his rise to power.

He has repeatedly said that he believes executing effective foreign policy comes from forming strong personal relations, and he has managed to find rapport with both the likes of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom Biden has labeled an “autocrat,” and more conventional Western leaders including Canada’s Justin Trudeau.

But with Putin, who he has said has “no soul,” Biden has long been wary. At the same time, he acknowledges that Putin, who has remained the most powerful figure in Russian politics over the span of five U.S. presidents, is not without talent.

“He’s bright. He’s tough,” Biden said earlier this week. “And I have found that he is a — as they say … a worthy adversary.”

Biden had prepared for his one-on-one by reviewing materials and consulting with officials across government and with outside advisers. Aides said the level of preparation wasn’t unusual. Biden, in a brief exchange with reporters upon arriving in Geneva on Tuesday night, sought to offer the impression that he wasn’t sweating his big meeting.

“I am always ready,” Biden said.

Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington and AP video journalist Daniel Kozin contributed reporting

This story has been corrected to show that Geneva is not Switzerland’s capital.

The U.S. military maintains a “nuclear triad” of ICBMs, bombers and ballistic missile submarines meant to deter nuclear-armed adversaries from attacking the nation, as the United States could respond with a subsequent attack even if a portion of its nuclear arsenal was wiped out.

“The basic design criteria of the triad is that you cannot allow a failure of any one leg of the triad to prevent everything the president has ordered you to do,” said Adm. Charles Richard during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

When bombers are on alert status, they sit parked on the runway, ready to take off with nuclear weapons loaded. Richard argued that, because the United States removed its bombers from alert status after the end of the Cold War, it essentially functions with only its Minuteman III ICBMs and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines prepared to take on the nuclear mission at a moment’s notice.

“What is not often recognized is that we do not have a triad from day to day. … Day to day, what you have is basically a dyad,” Richard said.

“If you don’t have intercontinental ballistic missiles … you are completely dependent on the submarine leg,” he said. “I’ve already told the secretary of defense that under those conditions, I would request to re-alert the bombers.”

The Biden administration is expected to assess the nation’s nuclear arsenal as part of a wide-ranging nuclear posture review. Richard’s comments come as the ICBM leg of the triad incurs increased scrutiny by left-leaning lawmakers and arms control advocates who have argued that the United States can still deter its adversaries with only its bombers and submarines.

That debate could leave the Air Force’s Minuteman III replacement vulnerable to deferral or outright cancellation. The Defense Department expects acquisition costs for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, currently under development by Northrop Grumman, to amount to more than $95 billion.

Richard has repeatedly spoken against delaying the GBSD program, saying during the SASC hearing on Tuesday that he could not deter China and Russia with the “leftovers of the Cold War” and arguing that the Minuteman III was too old to be life-extended.

“I need weapon systems that will ultimately work and actually make it to the target,” he said. “What they are doing to keep the [Minuteman III] functioning — remember, that is a ’70s-era weapon system that I’m going to employ against 2030-level threats. We are down to two of a particular type of switch that is required to go in the launch control centers. Nobody knows how to make it anymore. It’s obsolete, it’s not worth [it for] a company to put their effort into [making] that.”

In the hypothetical case that the United States did decommission its ICBMS, Richard did not lay out which of its bombers would be put on alert status.

The U.S. Air Force retains two nuclear-capable bombers — the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress and Northrop B-2 Spirit — as the B-1 Lancer was converted to conduct conventional missions only as part of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

The 1950s-era B-52 is capable of launching the nuclear version of the Air Launched Cruise Missile, while the stealthy B-2 can drop nuclear gravity bombs including the B61 and B83. Both bombers will be able to use the ALCM’s replacement, the Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) weapon currently under development by Raytheon.

In 2017, Defense One reported that the Air Force was taking steps to get its B-52s ready to go back on alert status, due in part to what was seen as a rising nuclear threat from North Korea. The order, which would have stemmed from STRATCOM or U.S. Northern Command, was ultimately never given.

Opponents, including top military leaders, argue the vague threat of nuclear escalation serves as a deterrent to conventional war as well as the use of chemical and biological weapons. But the sponsors ― House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Senate Armed Services Committee member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. ― argue a “no first use” policy would lower the risk of an accidental nuclear war.

“The United States should never initiate a nuclear war,” Smith said in a statement. “This bill would strengthen deterrence while reducing the chance of nuclear use due to miscalculation or misunderstanding. Codifying that deterring nuclear use is the sole purpose of our nuclear arsenal strengthens U.S. national security and would renew U.S. leadership on nuclear nonproliferation and disbarment.”

The legislation faces an uphill path through Congress, particularly the evenly divided Senate. However some nonproliferation advocates see a possible opening with President Joe Biden, who is expected to conduct his own Nuclear Posture Review and said as vice president that he was “confident we can deter and defend ourselves and our allies against nonnuclear threats through other means.”

“The major risk of nuclear use today comes from the danger that a small or accidental clash or conflict will escalate quickly through confusion or fear and cross the nuclear threshold,” Global Zero’s chief executive, Derek Johnson, said in a statement. “America’s decades-long policy of threatening its own possible first use of nuclear weapons only adds to this danger.”

Asked at a House hearing Thursday how allies who rely on America’s nuclear deterrent would react to a “no first use” declaration, U.S. European Command’s Gen. Tod Wolters said: “You’d get some mixed responses.”

Wolters said he backs current policy, which was set in 2018 and reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in “significant non-nuclear strategic attacks,” such as attacks on the U.S., its allies and its nuclear infrastructure.

Maintaining ambiguity “complicates an adversary’s decision-making process,” then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford said during a Senate hearing in 2019, “and I wouldn’t advocate any change that would simplify an adversary’s decision-making.” Dunford endorsed the nuclear weapons policy of the time.

The NNSA is a semiautonomous agency located within the Department of Energy. It has oversight on the technical development and production of America’s nuclear warheads.

A mechanical engineer by trade, Hruby worked at the Sandia National Laboratories in 1983, retiring in 2017 as the director. After retirement, she served as the Sam Nunn distinguished fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative from 2018 to 2019 and joined its board in 2019.

She also served as a member of the Defense Science Board, the NNSA’s Defense Programs Advisory Committee, and the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on International Security and Arms Control. If confirmed, Hruby would become the second woman to lead the NNSA, directly following Lisa Gordon-Hagerty.

Her nomination was first reported by the Exchange Monitor. Charles Verdon, a longtime NNSA official who was appointed to a top job during the Trump administration, has been serving as acting administrator.

The NNSA spent most of 2020 at the center of a internal fight in the DOE over its budget, which eventually led to Gordon-Hagerty being pushed out of the agency and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., declaring the department’s leadership was “trying to undermine” nuclear weapons modernization.

Hruby would also take charge of NNSA at a time when the agency is starting work on an ambitious modernization plan, which the Biden administration may look to alter or scale back.

In a statement, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called Hruby “one of DOE’s very best success stories” and “a brilliant leader, a model public servant, and an inspiration to engineers and rising stars everywhere.”

Former Energy Secretary Ernst Moniz, retired Sen. Sam Nunn, and NTI President and Chief Operating Office Joan Rohlfing issued a statement endorsing the pick of Hruby.

“With her unparalleled leadership experience and technical knowledge, Jill has helped guide NTI’s global nuclear threat reduction work, including the development and release of the first comprehensive, open-source analysis of Russia’s new nuclear weapon delivery systems,” they wrote. “With a remarkable combination of technical understanding, analytic skills, and vision, Jill has been an indispensable resource for us and our Board, as well as a mentor to our experienced staff. She would be an outstanding leader of NNSA.”